Alan Liere’s hunting and fishing report for July 10, 2025

Thu., July 10, 2025

By Alan Liere The Spokesman-Review

Tip of the week

Tip of the week: If you plan on keeping any of your catch for eating, don’t go fishing without a cooler filled with an ice slurry made by adding a big handful of salt to a bag of ice and a couple of quarts of water. This will cool your catch quickly and help it retain flavor and texture. Do not clean the fish before adding it to the slurry.

Overheard: On June 30, the Columbia River sockeye run size was downgraded from 350,200 to 183,200. At this reduced run size, the number of sockeye available for harvest is approximately 12,800 fish. This has resulted in a revised limit on the Brewster Pool where anglers are only allowed two fish, and can only fish Wednesday through Saturday.

Premiering Wednesday, July 9, Idaho Fish and Game rolled out its second podcast Wednesday, featuring in-depth discussions with the men and women of the agency. “Shootin’ the Bull” will air on the first Wednesday of every month and cover a wide range of Idaho Fish and Game topics, including fish and wildlife biology, game warden tales, Fish and Game’s history and more.

Heads up: The Lake Coeur d’Alene Big One Chinook Derby sponsored by Fins and Feathers and the Lake Coeur d’Alene Anglers Association runs July 23-27. Pre-register at Fins and Feathers. The entry fee is $50 per anglers and the first-place payout is $5,000, with lesser amounts awarded down to 10th place.

Fly fishing

The Grande Ronde is still a good bet for smallmouth bass 2 pounds and up. A frog or mouse pattern on top will bring savage strikes.

Most rivers are fishing well. The trout are feeding on top, but nymphs and streamers are taking their share. The “purple haze” Parachute Adams pattern always works well this time of year, but a dry/dropper is also productive.

Trout and Kokanee

Priest Lake anglers are drop-shotting deep water for mackinaw running mostly 3 to 4 pounds. Pearl-colored 3-inch Berkley Power Minnows tipped with hunks of pikeminnow have been effective. Trollers are catching larger macks on the bottom around the islands.

Rainbow and cutthroat trout are still good bets early and late in the day at Amber, Williams and Badger lakes. At Badger, the kokanee bite can also be good. Other good trout fishing lakes close to Spokane are Clear, Fishtrap and Diamond. Farther away, Rock Lake angling is not as affected by the heat as are other lakes, and its rainbow and brown trout can be huge.

Trout fishing at Big Meadow Lake in Pend Oreille County can be fair to good. The Little Pend Oreille chain has rainbow and tiger trout. Fishing is not fast, but the tiger trout are getting big.

Anglers trolling for kokanee in Lake Chelan have been catching some nice cutthroat trout. The kokanee fishing has been slow lately.

The Seep Lakes south of the Potholes Reservoir are fishing well for trout. Top lakes are Warden, Upper Hampton and Upper Goose. Use Power Bait 18 inches off the bottom or cast Rooster Tails.

Lake Coeur d’Alene kokanee are running an impressive 12 to 15 inches. The best bite has been in Powder Horn Bay. A variety of spinners and Wedding Ring-type lures tipped with corn or maggots is most popular, trolled 30 to 50 feet down.

Steelhead and salmon

The Columbia River ocean management area opened for recreational salmon fishing for all species on June 25. The Westport ocean management area opened for recreational salmon fishing for all species on June 29. The Columbia River Area (including Oregon) saw 1,493 anglers land 287 chinook (2% of the area guideline) and 1,386 coho (3% of the area quota). At Westport through June 29, 1,029 chinook (5% of the area guideline) and 98 coho had been landed. Through June 29, 2,715 chinook (22% of the area guideline) and zero coho had been landed at Neah Bay,

The Entiat River in Chelan County will be open for chinook salmon from the mouth (railroad bridge) to the Mad River Road Bridge crossing the Entiat River until further notice.

Spiny ray

Historically, July is when the largest Snake River walleye are caught. Smallmouth bass are also hitting. The Lyons Ferry area of the Snake is a good place to find both.

The Keller area of Lake Roosevelt, the flats across from Porcupine Bay and Hawk Creek have been good recently for smaller walleye.

Good smallmouth fishing is also available on Lake Roosevelt, Lake Coeur d’Alene and Hayden Lake. Fernan and the Idaho Chain Lakes are booting out largemouth. The stretch of the Pend Oreille River from Newport to Usk has been good for smallmouth and largemouth bass. Smallmouth to 4 pounds are hitting jigs with plastic trailers on Long Lake.

A friend fished Sacheen Lake from his kayak this week and said he had a decent day, catching a nice bass on a rubber frog, and a bunch of panfish and small bass on jigs and bobbers. He also caught five good-sized crappie. He was through fishing at 8 a.m.

Banks Lake walleye are hitting trolled crank baits in the vicinity of Barker Flats. Run your offering 15 to 18 feet down. Smallmouth fishing remains excellent.

Many walleye anglers have given up fishing on Moses Lake until autumn. The fish have gone deep, and those few caught are said to be “grassy.”

At MarDon Resort, Nathan LaFrance said largemouth bass fishing has been excellent. He suggests fishing Spooks early and late and always having a Senko rigged to follow up on missed fish. Throw one-half ounce jigs, swim jigs, spinnerbaits and Texas rigged plastics. The fish are in 1 to 20 feet of water and lots of 1- to 3-pound fish are being caught, as well as a few in the 4- to 5-pound range. Anglers also report catching channel cats in the shallows while targeting largemouth. LaFrance said bluegill, crappie and some big perch are also coming in.

There are several hike-in lakes west of Potholes Reservoir that have good populations of largemouth bass. Three of the best are Desert Lake and the Frenchman’s and Winchester wasteways.

Long Lake – the one close to Moses Lake – is producing good numbers of walleye, largemouth, smallmouth and perch.

The perch bite, which is usually steady at Eloika Lake, is almost nonexistent during this hot weather, but the largemouth bass bite remains good. Perch fishing has been better at deeper lakes like Loon, Deer and Diamond. Sacheen and Jumpoff Joe can also be productive.

Lake Pend Oreille walleye have been biting all summer. Good catches are reported from the water along Sunnyside and Kootenai Points, the U.S. Highway 95 Long Bridge and Railroad Bridge areas near Sandpoint continue to be hot spots for walleye on the edges of weed beds. The Lake Pend Oreille Walleye Angler Incentive Program is still paying up to $1,000 to anglers who turn in the heads of tagged walleye.

Other species

There have been reports of excellent fishing for channel catfish in 50 to 60 feet of water from Snake River anglers fishing just past the grain elevators at Lyons Ferry. You don’t have to go at night for good fishing there, but the bite does pick up as it gets dark.

Hunting

Starting this season, Idaho elk hunters targeting Unit 53 should note that 53 is no longer part of the Snake River Zone. It has been reassigned to the Big Desert Zone, which means the short-range weapon hunt falls under that zone. While the hunt remains uncapped with no quota on tags, all hunters planning to hunt elk in Unit 53 must purchase a Big Desert A tag.

Contact Alan Liere at spokesmanliere@yahoo.com